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Two Races, Two Podiums - Spela Horvat

April 23, 2013 -
Spela Horvat

The racing season has started. I was racing constantly for the last two weeks and won two podiums, actually two second places. This season is a fresh start for me; I race on a new bike Scott Gambler 10, signed with a new team Energijateam.com and train with a new trainer and the hard work during the winter has payed off. The first race took me to the croatian island Losinj, where was the first international race and the second one was the first round of the Slovenian national Cup in Avce.

1. International race, island Losinj, Croatia

After a long and cold winter in my home country Slovenia the race in the Adriatic sea was like a vacation. It was the first time this year when my bike wasn't muddy. The track was different from what I was used to. It was short, flat at the top, really rocky and steep in the middle and downtown style at the end. The practise runs went really fine and I didn't have any problems on the track, I actually grew to love the track. On Sunday it was racing time. I finished the quali 2nd, 10 seconds behing the winner of the race Zarja Cernilogar. My goal in the finals was to race at the highest level possible and achieve a better timed run, but unfortunatelly I unclipped my clip-in pedal and couldn't clip back in on a bumpy track like this. When I finished my race run the time was the same, still 10 seconds behind the winner and I achieved 2nd place. Overall the weekend was a success, not bad for a first race of the season at all.

results:

1. Zarja Cernilogar (Blackthorn GT, SLO)

2. Spela Horvat (Energijateam.com, SLO)

3. Dubravka Druzeta (BK MTB Istra Pazin, CRO)

1. round of the Slovenian Cup series, Avce, Slovenia

Second race of the season was the first round of the Slovenian Cup. This year was the 10th anniversary of the race in Avce and it was really well organized. The track in Avce is preety demanding, fast with technical rocky sections and big jumps and quite long. I treated this course with respect and the training went fine. I fell two times in practise, but it was nothing serious. I managed to pull up an awesome quali run and finished 2nd after Zarja Cernilogar and only 2 seconds back. I knew I can go even faster and I was eager to win, but it didn't work out for me on Sunday's race run. I did to many mistakes, went off track and crashed at the bottom of the track. I still finished the race 2nd, but the gap between me and the winner grew much bigger so I was really disappointed and angry, but there are still many races to compete in :)

results:

1. Zarja Cernilogar (Blackthorn GT, SLO)

2. Spela Horvat (Energijateam.com, SLO)

3. Andrea Radacic (MTB Celesnk, CRO)

my next race is in two weeks, 2nd round of the Slovenian Cup and also a UCI C2 race. Wish me luck !!